Our Story

A new perspective on Toronto game development and the stories our city is telling.

Third Person was founded with the ideals of exploring video games through the stories and individuals in our own city. The goal is to elevate games discourse, to investigate the stories they tell and the ones they have created. By talking to developers and community members, we will provide insight into making games and those behind them. Third Person always strives to be inclusive and to give everyone a voice.

We will look at modern game releases, older games and everything in between. We are dedicated to approaching games and media with an open mind, and we will explore their worlds and take you, the reader, on the journey with us. Through articles, spotlights on local creators/events, podcast episodes, and long form discussion on the industry, Third Person will be bringing you content on Toronto, and the community and business found here.

TEAM

EDITOR-IN-CHIEF

Colin Cummingscolin@thirdperson.space

Growing up in a small town, going to school for graphic and web design and finally moving to Toronto, Colin began to look for a new project and landed on Third Person. He has always had a passion for video games and finally decided to do something about it. Inspired by websites like Giant Bomb, Polygon, and Waypoint, Colin has founded Third Person with the intent of covering games using a mix of the old and the new.

The early experiences were games like Lego Island, Spyro The Dragon and Pokemon Blue. From there a passion grew. Colin has been glued to E3 coverage, stayed up more times than he can count for a midnight release and has spent hundreds of hours in places like Azeroth. Now, Colin loves to dive mostly into RPGs of all kinds, exploring their worlds and developing his character. Well-crafted stories draw him in too, and he is always on the lookout for a new adventure.

When he's not spending a billion years in a game's character creator, he can be found behind his camera, reading comic books, or probably sleeping.

EDITOR-AT-LARGE

EDITORS

Sophia Parksophi@park.computer

Sophia Park is a narrative and game designer in Toronto, Ontario. She’s the founder of Aether Interactive, a game development collective focused on creating interactive works about deconstruction and compassion; exploring the relationships we’re already forming with technology; and challenging the myths of nostalgia.

She also serves as a director of Dames Making Games, an arts organisation in Toronto that provides space for genderqueer people, nonbinary people, femmes, Two Spirit people, and trans and cis women to create games freely.

Her latest work with Aether Interactive, LOCALHOST, released in September 2017, is about convincing artificial intelligences to let you delete them so you can repurpose the hard drives they live on. LOCALHOST and her future projects are concerned with the biological imperatives hidden within the artificial, about the intersections between increasingly technological work and increasingly conversational, sentient assistants, and our new relationship with the synthetic.

Some of her favorite games include: Metroid Prime, Guild Wars, Digital: A Love Story

Kate Haineskate.thirdperson@gmail.com

Kate became enthusiastic about cosplay and costume in high school, which eventually lead to an education in fashion production and design. Though not all who wander are lost, Kate found herself swept up in the exciting realm of costume making, which ended up leading down an unexpected path. Through the friends she met her in hobbies, Kate discovered the diverse world of tabletop storytelling. From classic dungeons and dragons, to home-brew campaigns based on the worlds of Fallout, Avatar the Last Airbender and more.

When she’s not building her next Shadowrun character or planning how to bring about the demise of her PC’s, Kate spends her time in the air. Though even when practicing her aerial silk, she can’t help but bring a bit of her nerdiness with her. Oh, and if that wasn’t enough, she’s also a 3D printing expert.

Some of her favorite games include: The Dragon Age and Mass Effect series, Fallout, Far Cry and she has a weakness for platformers such as Limbo. Currently she’s playing or running tabletop games in Dungeons and Dragons (3.5e), Shadowrun and is preparing for a game in her own unique rules set.

Logan Westlogan.thirdperson@gmail.com

From a young age, Logan knew he was destined for heroism and greatness, and that his life would be filled with harrowing adventures, melodrama, and overall bad-assery. Boy, was he wrong. Lost and adrift in a sea of normalcy and reality, Logan turned to video games, life's greatest compromise, for direction and balance.

There, he found worlds filled with untamed, lush forests, whose winding paths held stories of travelers even more untamed and lush. He took a trip to the stars, to worlds beyond ours where the boundaries of reality were pushed by exotic new sights. He met wonderful and strange people and creatures, whose words held impactful knowledge, whose stories forged lasting memories. He saved a world, rebuilt a town, destroyed another, lifted a curse, cured a plague, put out a fire, lit a flame, turned everything green, blew up a ship, shipped a package and kicked a chicken. It is easy, with so many colourful tasks to complete, to distract oneself from a boring life using video games, they are escapism realized. This is why it is most fortuitous that from all the video-game-playing, Logan gained perspective.

After spending a lot of time learning about life in virtual worlds, he decided to make his real life more interesting and fulfilling. He currently studies people, information, and crime, in hopes that one day he may find himself in a position to use that information to stop crime and help people. Logan hopes that his new found perspective on real life can work backwards too, to help him talk about video games in a way that helps others see things differently.

Loves: Bethesda games, guitar, a really good sandwichLikes: Most RPG and open world games, League of Legends, Overwatch, mediocre sandwiches